Model Art Magazine is a monthly publication covering aircraft, armor, ships and car modeling. Model Art began releasing magazines in 1966, and has evolved over the past forty-six years. They also release many special issues during the year, as is the case of this sample.

This issue covers IJN destroyers that were produced from 1918 - 1941. The classes include: Minekaze, Kamikaze, Momi, Wakatake, Mutsuki, Fufuki (Tokugata), Hatsuharu, Shiratsuyu, Asashio, Kagero, Yugumo, Akizuki, Shimakasze and Matsu. The magazine is broken down into ten sections.

Sections one, two and three cover the armament found on IJN destroyers. This includes small-caliber canons, torpedo tubes, and light and heavy machine guns. Each is illustrated with a photograph of the weapon, a detailed line drawing and the aftermarket parts available. Section four contains the aftermarket kits from Fine Molds, Skywave, and Pit Road. Also included are the model kits found within the date range of this issue. One should note that all of the models in this issue are 1/700 scale.

Sections five through nine cover the models. They use several kits, showing them in different stages of construction. These builds range from out-of-the-box to highly-detailed with the addition of aftermarket parts. Often, the same kit is used with and without aftermarket to show the enhancement provided by the detail parts. There are also several tips given on how to improve your models with parts from the kit.

The issue finishes with section ten, containing a multitude of black and white period photos. These images depict the evolution of the bows, depth charges and antennae arrangements, to name just a few examples. The last thirty-four pages consist of period black and white photos and line drawings of the destroyers.

Even though Model Art is mainly printed in Japanese, I still found it to be a very valuable resource. For those that are more technologically advanced, there are apps that will translate Japanese to English. I used one of these and it really helped to understand the articles. I recommend Model Art to modelers as another publication for your research.

I would like to thank Model Art for providing this issue and IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review it.